Ask enough people who’ve packed up their lives and moved overseas what they wish they’d known beforehand, and a pattern starts to emerge pretty quickly. It’s rarely the big, dramatic stuff that trips people up. More often it’s the paperwork nobody warned them about, the friendships they didn’t build fast enough, or the tax form they didn’t realize still applied to them thousands of miles from home.
Drawing on recent expat surveys, tax-service research, and large-scale analysis of online expat communities, a fairly consistent list of regrets shows up again and again. Here’s what the data and the people living it actually say.
1. Underestimating how complicated US taxes stay abroad
Moving overseas doesn’t get you out of the US tax system, and that surprises a lot of newly arrived expats. A large majority of expats (83%) said US tax filing requirements are stressful, according to Greenback Expat Tax Services’ 2025 survey of over a thousand Americans. It’s one of the most consistently cited frustrations among people living outside the country, regardless of where they’ve landed.
What makes it worse is that many don’t know there’s a relatively painless fix for people who fell behind. 55% of expats don’t know the IRS offers a program – Streamlined Filing Procedures – to help delinquent filers catch up without penalties. The regret here isn’t just the filing burden itself, it’s not knowing sooner that catching up doesn’t have to be punishing.
2. Not realizing how much banking abroad would change
Opening a simple checking account overseas sounds routine until a bank asks for forms most expats have never heard of. The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) mandates that U.S. citizens report their foreign financial accounts, leading to additional paperwork, and according to a 2022 survey, 28% of American expatriates had to file extra forms due to FATCA, and 6% encountered challenges with banking abroad as a result. Some foreign banks simply decline to serve American clients rather than deal with the reporting requirements.
Expats who wish they’d done things differently often say they’d have researched FATCA-friendly banks before signing a lease, not after. It’s a quiet regret, the kind that doesn’t come up until you’re standing at a teller’s window being told your application won’t go through. A little homework in advance saves a lot of frustration later.
3. Underestimating homesickness
This is the regret that shows up most often, by a wide margin. In a large-scale review of expat discussions, researchers found that being homesick (30.9%), difficulty finding work (26.6%) and struggling with the cost of living (25.7%) are the top three reasons people move back home. Homesickness alone outranks every other factor.
The pull isn’t always about missing a place. Expats reported struggling to make friends (16.6%) and a strong pull to go home to be with their existing friends and family (13.2%) as the other main reasons making the top 5. Plenty of people say the actual move was easier than staying emotionally settled once the novelty faded.
4. Not building a social circle fast enough
Loneliness creeps in quietly, and by the time it’s noticeable, it’s already shaped someone’s whole outlook on their new country. Analysis of expat regrets found that people leaving Canada, UK, Australia, mentioned struggling with making friendships the most of any location analysed, which suggests this isn’t tied to any one culture. It’s a common blind spot regardless of destination.
Researchers behind that analysis point to a practical fix rather than a mystery to solve. Immigrants should work on building stronger social networks, exploring hobbies to combat loneliness, seeking mental health support when needed, and staying connected with loved ones back home. Many expats say in hindsight they treated the move as a logistics project and forgot it was also a social one.
5. Misjudging the actual cost of living
Cheaper rent doesn’t always mean a cheaper life, and that gap catches people off guard. Among expats who ended up returning home, immigrants leaving Australia, Canada, Germany, mentioned cost of living struggles the most in the dataset, showing that even relocations to wealthy, stable countries don’t guarantee financial ease. Healthcare, taxes, and unexpected fees often eat into savings that looked generous on paper.
The trend has accelerated recently too. In recent years, cities in Australia and Canada especially have seen sharp rises in the cost of living, which means budgets built a few years ago may already be outdated. Expats who’ve been through it often say they wish they’d built in a bigger buffer than they thought they needed.
6. Waiting too long to renounce, or renouncing too fast
Citizenship decisions weigh on a lot of Americans abroad, and opinions on timing vary sharply. Nearly half of US expats (49%) said they either plan to or are seriously thinking about renouncing their citizenship, marking a significant 63% rise since last year, when just 30% reported the same. Many who’ve gone through it say they underestimated how emotionally complicated the decision would feel once it stopped being theoretical.
Timing matters financially too, and it changed abruptly this year. On April 13, the State Department reduced its renunciation fee from $2,350 to $450, restoring the rate that had been in place from 2010 to 2014, following sustained legal pressure. Some expats who paid the higher fee in prior years have openly said they wish they’d simply waited.
7. Not scouting the country before committing
A short vacation and an actual relocation feel almost nothing alike, and plenty of expats learn that the hard way. Regret patterns tend to cluster heavily around destinations that looked appealing on paper but disappointed in daily life. The 2024 Expat Insider poll, which drew responses from more than 12,500 expats based in 174 countries or territories, ranked Kuwait among the least satisfying places to settle, a reminder that popular relocation hubs and satisfying ones aren’t always the same thing.
By contrast, destinations that consistently score well tend to share traits that are easy to overlook from a distance, like community warmth and administrative simplicity. Mexico is the number one expat destination for happiness according to several surveys, with roughly nine in ten expats satisfied with their quality of life. Many expats say a longer scouting trip, rather than a single glowing recommendation online, would have saved them a costly do-over.
8. Not planning for retirement accounts and Social Security early
Financial planning gets tangled fast once someone crosses a border, and retirement savings are often the part people neglect the longest. Navigating dual systems, currency shifts, and different account rules is rarely simple, and navigating the administrative requirements of both the United States and host countries can be daunting for expatriates. Many expats say they wish they’d consulted a cross-border financial advisor before their first year abroad, not five years into it.
State-level tax residency adds another layer that catches people off guard. Some states don’t let you walk away, California, New York, and Illinois have dedicated audit units and billions in incentives to argue you never really left. Expats who assumed a change of address form was enough have sometimes ended up owing state taxes years after moving.
9. Underestimating how political shifts back home would affect their decision
For a growing share of expats, the regret isn’t about the move itself but about not leaving sooner, or reconsidering ties to the US altogether. A concern affecting a majority of the respondents is the political direction of the U.S. government, with 60% saying they do not feel fairly represented by the U.S. government, while the same number also believe America’s global reputation declined following the 2024 election. That sense of disconnection has clearly deepened over the past year rather than faded.
The shift shows up in hard numbers too, not just sentiment. Interest in renouncing citizenship is strongest among Millennial and Gen X expats, at 60% and 54% respectively, compared with just 29% among Gen Z and baby boomers. Plenty of people in that middle-age bracket say they wish they’d made peace with the decision sooner instead of sitting on the fence for years.
The one regret almost nobody expected
Interestingly, the regret that comes up least often is the one most people worry about before they leave: mental health struggles. Mental health problems was one of the least mentioned reasons for returning home being reported by 2.1% of ex-expats, though it should be noted that people may not feel comfortable discussing this on a public forum. That gap between fear and reality is worth sitting with for anyone hesitating over a move right now.
If there’s a common thread running through all of these stories, it’s that the biggest regrets rarely involve the move itself. They’re almost always about the small, practical things nobody mentioned beforehand: a tax form, a bank policy, a friendship that needed more effort than expected. The people who seem to adjust best aren’t the ones with the most money or the boldest plans. They’re the ones who did their homework, stayed patient through the awkward first year, and gave themselves permission to miss home without treating it as a sign they’d made the wrong choice.
